What Parents Should Know for Back to School

About the Author

As the summer winds down, children everywhere race to finish
their summer reading assignments and parents begin their search for
new notebooks, bigger backpacks, and maybe even better schools.

Two years after the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act
parents have access to more information about the quality of public
schools than ever before. No Child Left Behind's reporting
requirements make schools more accountable to parents. Schools must
issue certain specific information about achievement in reading and
math, and schools that persistently fail to educate children at
grade level must offer new options, such as tutoring and school
choice. Armed with information and empowered by this new authority,
parents are in a better position than ever before to choose where
their children attend school.

No Child Left Behind requires every state to release information
about each of its schools and school districts annually. These
reports must include data about student academic achievement on
state reading and math tests, graduation rates, teacher
qualifications, and whether or not a school has been identified as
a "needs improvement" school. Each state sets adequate yearly
progress (AYP) goals for its schools that must be met at the
school-wide level and by specific student subgroups. States have
the freedom to set their own AYP standards, tests, and targets,
which they must do for reading proficiency, English acquisition,
and mathematics.

With these targets comes accountability for results. Schools
that fail to meet their improvement targets for two consecutive
years are classified as 'needing improvement;' Their districts must
provide transportation for eligible students to attend another
public school in the district that is achieving its academic
objectives. Parents of children at these underperforming schools
may choose to send their children to any public school in the
district-even a charter school.

But that's not the end of the story. After a school is
classified as 'needing improvement,' it must develop its own plan
to substantially improve within two years. And if a school falls
short of the targets for three consecutive years, it must provide
supplemental services such as tutoring and summer school to any
low-income students whom it serves, in addition to continuing to
offer public school choice to all of its students. Parents may
choose from a list of state-approved tutoring services, including
such private providers as Sylvan Learning Systems, Kaplan K12
Learning Services, and Princeton Review.

But wait, there's more: If, after five consecutive years, a
school is still failing to meet its improvement requirements, it
must be restructured and reopened as a charter school or accept a
new management team-perhaps a private operator.

Parents can access information about schools' progress in
several ways. The U.S. Department of Education recently teamed up
with the Broad Foundation, the National Center for Education
Accountability, and Standard and Poor's to create an easy-to-use
website-www.SchoolResults.org-where
parents can find information about their child's school, district,
and state. On this website, a parent can compare the status and
progress of schools within his or her district and across the
state, as well as access detailed information about each state's
specific AYP standards and action plans.

Just for the Kids has a similar feature on its website-www.just4kids.org-where
parents can find data about their child's school and information
about states' best practices studies. Parents can also visit the
Heritage Foundation's
one-stop-shopping web source for information about educational
choice policies. This information is an especially important tool
for parents of children in schools that need improvement to help
them make the best available choices for their children.

In addition, the Department of Education has several other
resources for parents, such as pamphlets entitled "Ten Facts Every
Parent Should Know About the No Child Left Behind Act" and
"Questions Parents Ask about Schools," as well as a number of links
to more information about supplemental services, all of which can
be found through the Department of Education's website: www.ed.gov.[1] Education Secretary Rod
Paige has also released a helpful back-to-school checklist for
parents.[2]

Parents should know their rights under No Child Left Behind.
School districts must-in plain and clear language-report on the
improvement status of their schools and explain the options that
parents have under NCLB if their children attend schools that 'need
improvement.' Schools and districts may not place any additional
requirements beyond those specified in NCLB on parents who are
seeking public school choice or access to supplemental services.
Parents who suspect that school administrators or district
officials are preventing them from exercising their rights should
seek assistance from their state's Department of Education.

Many school districts have innovative programs in place that
implement the requirements of No Child Left Behind. One example is
the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), which includes 106
schools that have been designated as needing improvement. Because
164,000 students are eligible for supplemental services in LAUSD,
the district hired a full-time manager and assistant to oversee the
Supplemental Educational Services (SES) program's recordkeeping and
communication between parents, students, teachers, and SES
providers. To make parents aware of the free services available to
their children, schools sent home informational flyers, brochures,
and provider-selection booklets in multiple languages. Principals
and teachers described these choices to parents in person and over
the telephone, and the district advertised SES in the local papers,
on radio stations, and on television.[3]

LAUSD's efforts to inform parents of their options should be a
model to other school districts still working to implement No Child
Left Behind. In the meantime, parents should be proactive in
finding out about their child's educational options. Access to
choice-whether school choice or choice of tutoring services-is,
after all, the best way for No Child Left Behind to live up to its
name.

Grace Smith is a research assistant
in domestic policy at The Heritage Foundation.